CHILDREN HAVE NO CHILDHOOD IN PAKISTAN

PROF WAQAR HUSSAIN

Children are loved for their innocence and candidness. Tagor says, “From the solemn gloom of the temple, children run out to sit in the dust; God watches them play and forgets the priest.” Children are away from all sorts of worries and live in their ‘dream world’. Gerome has rightly said, “Babies wrong things, at a wrong time, at a wrong place, in a wrong way and if they don’t do so, they need a doctor.”Unfortunately, children in Pakistan are forced to come out of their childhood. In villages, children work in fields from dawn to dusk along with their elders. In cities, they work in hotels, automobile repairing shops, cottage industries, etc. So child labour has snatched the childhood of Pakistani children. The school going children carry heavy satchel of books.They lose their traits of childhood under the burden of studies. Furthermore, in small towns and villages, teachers inflict corporal punishment to children. In our paternal society, the father often occupies the role of ‘dictator’ in a home. This rage and rigour withers innocence of children. In sum, our deteriorated economic system, lam-administered educational system and male dominated social culture have created an atmosphere where our children cannot flourish with their childhood. One should keep in mind that childhood is the age of liberty and freedom, not that of competency and labour. Children should be allowed to prosper in natural free atmosphere.